Sifting through sand to find perfect shells so miniscule, you could hardly see them in my hand.

Chewing on sinewy, purpley stalks of sugar cane whacked down with a machete. Dairy Queen, fig preserves, sweet cornbread, uncured ham, grapes and pomegranates stolen from the yards of neighbors. Okra growing as big as my arm, left to toughen in the garden.

Buzzing inside as grown dykes played softball behind a chainlink fence– wishing just one of them would not be afraid to notice I was one of their own.

Driving down Main with our shirts pulled over our faces to filter the poisonous stench of oil refineries. Thinking nothing of it.

Sculpting life-sized figures from wet beach sand, and standing invisible but proud when beachcombers stopped to see. Standing in sad silence as adults eventually and invariably added beer cans, erections, and misshapen breasts.

Embers cracking toward the tops of shadowy pines as bloody hands roasted the legs of frogs that had been gigged at dusk. Muddy rubber boots of young brothers and cousins, Cruelty forgotten.

Perfecting that satisfying crack of a watermelon stomped open in the field.

Tasting the salt of the Gulf of Mexico in the air. Hauling buckets of blue crabs my brothers and I netted using a chicken neck on a string. Stingrays and eels reeled from brown water onto sunburnt piers.

In the backseat of my mama’s car, cutting through flat fields of cotton that line miles of desolate highway. Barbed wire strung on greying old branches hammered into the hard earth. Eye snagged only by churning oil rigs, the occasional prison, rusted machinery, and abandoned farm houses at the end of red dirt roads. Cattle huddling together under the shade of one lone tree in a pasture. Bluebonnets carpeting scrub land where grass would never grow.

Swimming in shady, mossy lakes as brown silt swirled under our feet, and floating down cool rivers on inner tubes from monster truck tires.

Tucking into tiny places with my outlaw friends, as if we were mice too wise to be caught. And getting so very high. Biker trash sitting still for hours while I tattooed with a sewing needle and india ink. Witnessing trapped friends become ragged methheads, heroin addicts, and thieves while we all floated kegs in the humble backyards of strangers. Even in a dull daze, trusting somehow my hope would not die there.

Clumsily chasing young girls whose voices burned husky with secrets for me. Freshman girls shivering when their bellies were grazed. Sweet Pentecostal angel with such fine long hair, so alone because she was different. Shy Rose. “Please”, she said. Audrey couldn’t keep her hands off herself, but had never been touched. Faith, smelling like heaven’s flowers. Candy, Suzette, Peanut, Bobbi, Linda, Tracy, and all the fumbling that meant too little to mention now. Do the ones I’ve forgotten have any memory of sun setting against the brick wall at the back of our school?

You best run on home, girl. Bet your mama is worried now.

Leaving that nitty-gritty town on the Texas Coast with a knapsack across my back and a tampon in my boot. Walking with my back to muddy Gulf Coast water, heading toward the oil refinery ahead and the Gulf Coast highway beyond. I knew I supposed to die in a trailer sitting on red dirt, with flat tires and no escape. I felt the dare in my steps and I knew I was brave. I also knew I was fierce white trash and that I was taking that with me. But I did not know what life I walked toward. And I did not know I was still innocent.

Posted by Daddy Rhon on Friday, April 27th, 2007 at 10:21 pm.